


Choking on Their Halos

by Jules1398



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coma, F/M, Flashbacks, Hospitals, M/M, Memories, Men of Letters Bunker, Multi, Post-Season/Series 08, Self-Hatred, Shipper!Sam, TFWBB, Team Free Will, Team Free Will Big Bang, fake ids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jules1398/pseuds/Jules1398
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Heaven was an endless of life's greatest moments and Hell was the worst torture imaginable, then what was this? Yes they were memories, but they weren't all good. And then there were Cas and Dean's voices, saying things, things that didn't belong in his memories. Where was Sam Winchester and, more importantly, how the hell was he going to get out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my child. Like it's the first one I finished and everything went as planned. Thanks to my best friend, Jaclyn, for all her great help and support.  
> The fantastic art is by guusana (guusana.tumblr.com and http://guuarts.tumblr.com). Thanks a million for doing this challenge with me!

_ If Heaven was an endless of life's greatest moments and Hell was the worst torture imaginable, then what was this? Yes they were memories, but they weren't all good. And then there were  Cas  and Dean's voices, saying things, things that didn't belong in his memories. Where was Sam Winchester and, more importantly, how the hell was he going to get out? _

__

* * *

 

On May 2, 1983, Samuel John Winchester was born to Mary and John Winchester. It  was a quick, natural birth. He was a fairly small baby, only six pounds when he was born. It would become an ongoing joke between him and his older brother. After all, that little six pound baby grew up to be a giant sasquatch. 

Sam didn't seem very special at first. Just another baby, small and happy. Mary insisted that he'd grow up to be a genius, to help the world via his massive IQ. And, though he did grow up to be a smart kid, Sam never gave himself credit for helping the world. Sure, he and his brother, and later  Castiel , would hunt down monsters and ghosts to save people from having a horrible fate similar to that of Mary Winchester, but they had also wrecked the world. Sam had cracked open a hell's gate, set Lucifer free, and then, most recently, failed to shut the gates of hell permanently. Hundreds, maybe thousands of lives he could've spared, but he didn't. Sam Winchester believed himself to be a failure. 

* * *

 

"Sam Winchester, what a  freak !"

"I hear he's a huge nerd. I can't confirm it though, it's not like the  freak  talks to anybody."

"Walter says that he saw that weird Winchester kid go into that gross motel after school. He lives in a motel! That kid sure is a  freak ."

Sam nibbled on his pencil as he struggled to write the paper that Ms. Peters had assigned for homework. The prompt was simple. "Everybody has an opinion of yourself. What do you think about yourself? How does it compare to what others think of you?"

Sam knew he was a grade A freak. He knew that's what a lot of other people thought of him too. How could he defend himself in this paper? It's not like he could say that he was a freak because he travels the country killing monsters with his dad and brother. Everybody already knew he was a freak and there was no way that they needed to think that he was a psycho on top of that.

Once again, Sam was going to have to dull down his life for the sake of a grade. He wasn't going to lie though. He was a freak.

> I, Sam Winchester, am a freak. All I've ever wanted to be is a normal kid. I wanted to play soccer, have friends, and go to birthday parties. Unfortunately, that can't happen. Not with everything that's happened to me.

> When I was six months old, my mother died. I don't remember her, but my older brother, Dean was four when she passed away and he says she was  beautiful. Everything that you wanted a mom to be. She had long locks of blond hair and blue eyes that warmed your heart. She sang her favorite Beatles' song, Hey Jude, instead of singing us lullabies. She would  tuck us in at night and say that angels were watching over us.
> 
> It turned out that the angels weren't watching over her. My mother died in a tragic house fire. She burned alive. My dad, Dean, and I barely made it out alive and, all of a sudden everything was different.
> 
> Even when the house was rebuilt, my dad couldn't bear to go back. Instead, we moved around a lot. Never really living in houses, just staying in old  roachy  motels. Staying with a friend of my dad's for a while was a rare delicacy.
> 
> My dad used to be mechanic before my mother died, but now he just picks up odd jobs to get us through. Often leaving me alone with just my older brother while he's working. These jobs never last too long. He'll finish them up then we'll move again. No time to make friends, at least not any friends that are worth keeping.
> 
> Once, about a year ago, I asked my dad if I could try out for the soccer team at whatever school we were at that fall.
> 
> "No, Sam. Are you trying to get us bankrupt. Don't waste my money on stupid games. You want exercise? Take a five mile run," he bellowed.
> 
> "But, Dad, you  gotta  let me be a normal kid for once," I replied.
> 
> "Sam, you are not a normal kid. Why try out for a sport when you could be leaving on a moments notice?" He argued. 
> 
> "It's not fair! Why can't we just stay in one place for a while? Give us a chance to do what we want, to make friends!"
> 
> "No, Sam. This conversation is over." My dad stormed out of the motel room, leaving me alone with my brother who was staring at the ground and playing with his fingernails.
> 
> He walked over to me and set a hand on my back. " S'ok , Sammy. I'll play soccer with you whenever you want."

> Everybody thinks I'm a freak, even my dad. The only one person that thinks I'm a normal person is Dean. Maybe he has some weird philosophy. "Everybody is freak, therefore nobody is," or something along those lines. I think that the unfortunate truth is that, although he comes off as a cool kid and does everything my dad tell him to do, he thinks that he's the biggest freak of all. He's got it wrong though. My big brother, Dean, is the best person that I've ever met.

Sam frowned at the paper below him. It was a good paper. Exactly what he wanted to convey in a way that didn't give away their true lifestyle, but there was still an element of truth to it. And that's what made him sad.

* * *

 

_ Then, he heard his brother's voice. It seemed to be speaking to him, but he didn't remember the conversation. Familiar, yet totally unrecognizable. _

_ "So, we'll head back to the bunker and then we can call- Sam? Sammy? Wake up. You might be concussed or somethin' so you can't be falling asleep just yet. DO YOU HEAR ME?! WAKE THE FUCK UP, SAMMY!" _

* * *

 

They were sitting in Bobby's library searching for some way, any way to stop the goddamn apocalypse that was raining down upon the Earth. There had to be some way to kill the devil and Bobby's enormous library seemed like a pretty damn good place to start looking. 

By they, he meant Sam and Bobby. Dean was moping around in a puddle of self-hate, searching through the cabinets for any sort of beer or whiskey that might of, on the off chance, survived the past few months. 

They heard a flutter of wings in the corner of the room and  Castiel  appeared in full  trenchcoated  glory, disheveled as always. His black hair was sticking up in a million different directions, his tie was backwards and its messy knot loose around his collar, and his coat was stained with dirt and maybe a bit of dried blood.

Dean stood up a little straighter and put on his tough guy act. This made Sam smile a bit. Though his brother would never admit it, Dean had a bit of a thing for the angel. Dean could wax poetry about the dude's eyes and how goddamn  blue  they were and then write it off by saying, "Yeah, the staring thing he does all the time is  kinda  creepy. Dude needs to get laid,"  when Dean was gazing right back into those baby blues for way longer than any "friend" should. He'd complain about  Castiel's  personal space issues, but always get right up in his face when he wanted to talk to him.

 Dean Winchester is totally, undeniably, in love with  Castiel  and it was absolutely infuriating. They just needed to get together.  Cas  was cut off for Heaven because of his obvious   crush for Dean. He said it was because they doubted his loyalties. Yeah, maybe because he was only loyal to  Dean.

They weren't going to get together any time soon, though.  Castiel  is too socially and emotionally inept to start anything, even if he did realize what his feeling were, and Dean feared what others would think. Dean thought that Sam looked up to  Dean Henry Winchester: Manly Man Tough Guy Extraordinaire . The guy who fixes cars, wins every fight, drinks hard alcohol, and fucks whichever pretty girl he pleases. It was a all a huge lie. Sam had always looked up to Dean, but the real Dean. Not the tough act that he put on for most of the world. The guy who would give anything and everything for his family, who always forgave him eventually, not matter how bad Sam fucked up this time. It didn't matter who his big brother was with, the gender of the people he slept with. Dean was Dean, and that was more than good enough for Sam.

That's why, when  Cas  walked right up to Dean and asked how research was going and Dean replied with a "personal space,  Cas ," Sam groaned to himself and walked out of the room, unable to suffer from the aura of sexual tension that they gave off any longer.

* * *

 

Bang!

"Nice job, Sam, You got it!" He heard his dad say somewhere nearby.

He willed his eyes open and stared in horror at the body of a woman lying in front of him, his first kill. She looked like an ordinary girl. Twenty, at most. She had short white-blond hair cropped in a bob, curling a little by her ears. The woman's eyes were a beautiful s hade of violet. A rare, but jaw - droppingly  beautiful hue.

She wore an oversized white t-shirt that was torn in several places along with a pair of short nylon shorts. The front of the shirt was now soaked in her blood, stemming from her heart, the place where Sam had carefully aimed the  glock  that was sitting like a heavy weight in his right hand. 

His dad and brother gave him praise for shooting her, but he didn't good about it at all. He had just killed a woman. Why are they proud?  Not a woman , he had to remind himself. She was really a werewolf. But the corpse lying there, five feet in front of Sam, did not look at all like a monster. She looked like a normal woman, with a normal life. Sam murdered her and he didn't even know her name.

So, he did what any eleven year old kid who needed closure would have done. He made up a story.

He decided that her name was Valerie Rogers. After all, she looked like a Valerie to him. Valerie, or Val, as her friends and boyfriend liked to call her was a completely normal girl who also just happened to be a monster when she thought she was sleeping. She was studying to be  a kindergarten teacher because she loved little kids, like her younger brothers and sisters, waiting for her to come home from college to visit them for the upcoming holiday. College was expensive and she was smart, but not smart enough to get a full, all expenses paid scholarship the nearby college, Oregon State. So, to earn the necessary money for her education, she worked at a nearby coffee shop. Serving hot coffee with a smile to anybody who needed it to start their day, or even just for a nice drink. Of course, their day was always better after seeing her because her smile radiated warmth.

How would they feel when she was gone? All that warmth she spread replaced with a cold sense of loss.

Sam had taken this innocent girl from people that cared about her, people that loved her. How was he supposed to feel a sense of pride after that?

So Sam did what most kids would do in this situation. He blocked out the memory. 

Sam Winchester's second kill was a shifter who knowingly murdered at least nine people. This time, he was just as proud as his dad and brother.

* * *

 

_ " Cas , you need to come back to the bunker, man. It's Sammy. He just won't wake up! I know we got into a disagreement last time we were together, but I still need you, man. Not just to help Sammy. I need you here. With me. I need to know that you're safe." _

_ The voice of his brother rang out again. Was his mind manufacturing these words to give Sam false hope? He was dead. There was no way out of here. _

* * *

 

" Cas ," Sam called, grabbing hold of the former angel's left shoulder.  Castiel  wasn't really an angel anymore. His grace had slowly leaked out of his body due to his lack of contact with heaven. It must have been painful, all your power tearing away slowly.  Castiel  must have really cared about Dean to do all of this, to fall for him.

"Yes, Sam?"  Cas  looked tired. Tired of seeing his family at war, his brothers and sisters killing one another over what started as a petty argument. It was all going to be over soon. Sam was going to defeat Lucifer from the inside out and return peace and prosperity to heaven. He was going to do this to put right what he set wrong. He was doing this for the countless deaths he was responsible for. Mom, Dad, Ellen, Jo, Jess. He was doing to keep the family he had left, Dean,  Cas , and Bobby, safe. But, after that, he was going to be dead. Not like last time. No crossroads deal could save him. Sam Winchester would become but a memory.

Sam struggled to meet  Cas ' blue eyes, darkened from the immense weight he had been carrying on his shoulders. "Watch out for Dean for me. Please. He needs to go and live a normal life. Can you make sure that happens? That he stays safe?"

Castiel  chewed on his lip. "Of course, Sam," he said. "I would give anything for Dean's safety."

Sam smiled to himself, as he knew it was true. Dean would be safe. After all, he had an angel on his shoulder. Mary Winchester was right all along. There were angels watching over them.

* * *

 

"Samuel Winchester!" called a voice from across the library. "I have a lovely lady that I'd absolutely love for you to meet."

Sam looked up from his roughened up, old psychology book to see Brady and a gorgeous blonde girl walking up to him and all the while earning dirty looks from other students who were trying to study and got disrupted by the booming of Brady's voice filling up the entire room. 

But, the girl that was with him. She was, wow. Sam was at a loss for words. She had long, wavy blonde hair framing her beautifully tanned skin. She was fairly slim, but she didn't flaunt her fantastic body shape, instead wearing jeans and a soft, cottony t-shirt. She wore a small amount of makeup, but she truly didn't need it. This girl was naturally perfect.

Brady stopped his staring by speaking up. "This, my dear friend, is Jessica Moore. She is studying to be a kindergarten teacher. She's  gonna  be a hell of a teacher with an over the top Stanford education. And she is also Danielle's much more polite and neat roommate."

Danielle Welford was Brady's girlfriend. She was showy and rude at times. Their relationship was really all about the looks and that sort of sickened Sam. A girlfriend was supposed to be a companion, somebody you cared about, somebody you loved. Brady knew that he wouldn't have to worry about Sam stealing her from him and, apparently, Brady had discovered exactly what kind of girls Sam Winchester preferred, proven by Miss Jessica Moore standing right in front of him. 

Her sugary sweet voice filled Sam's ears. "Hey, you can call me Jess." He instantly longed to hear her voice again, to study each syllable. She grinned at him, revealing a full set of pearly white teeth.

Sam gave her his signature Winchester grin and replied, "I'm Sam. Pre-law." He sounded stupid. Speaking in short sentences like that. He had many more thing that he wanted to say to Jess, he just couldn't seem to get them out.

She moved around the table and sat next to him, minimizing the space between them. "So, Sam, Danielle and Brady want us to go on a double date with them. Are you at all interested, because I think I am." She radiated confidence and beauty, giving Sam a sense of warmth deep inside his soul.

"Um, sure. Of course," Sam responded, feeling stupid at his lack of eloquence, wondering why he just couldn't seem to say the right words. Dean would've been able to. Hell, even Brady would've sounded better than him.

He suddenly noticed that Brady had crept out of the room a while ago. "Great!" Jessica grinned standing up from her seat and brushing blonde curls over her shoulder. "Huck's Pizza at eight on Friday. Miss it and you're going to make a certain girl very disappointed." She winked. Why couldn't Sam pull off a wink? Dean could always do it perfectly when he was trying to get a girl, but whenever Sam made an attempt it just looked like he was scrunching up his face.

"I'll be there." He called as she began to walk away, the warmth still lingering inside of him.

"You'd better!" she called back to him as she walked through the doorway, throwing her head over her right shoulder.

* * *

 

"Sammy, while we're in the neighborhood, you want to go visit your girl?" Dean asked as he loosely gripped the steering wheel of the Impala.

Sam sighed. "We're three hours north of Palo Alto. Heading in the opposite direction. We have to keep going. We have to find Dad."

Dean shrugged as if he was giving up.

The next chance he got, he turned around toward Palo Alto.

Sam flipped out. "Dean, what the hell do you think you're doing. What if Dad if at the next hunt we were going to? Huh? What if we miss him?" There was fire in Sam's voice, masking the pain and fear that has hiding underneath. Covered by his desire for vengeance. To bring down the demon that killed Jess. Jess, who wasn't even a part of this. She didn't even know.

"Dude," Dean said, looking over to him for a second, "Dad hasn't been at any of the last places we've checked. What makes you think he'll be in Seattle? Maybe he's dead, maybe he's alive. Either way-"

Sam glared at his brother. "He's not dead, Dean. He's not that goddamn stupid. He wouldn't walk alone into some hunt where he could get himself killed. We have to find him and we have to kill this demon. For Jessica. For Mom."

Dean placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Either way, he'd want you to visit Jessica. He'd want you to say goodbye."

There were tears in Sam's eyes now. "She's not even there. She's just a pile of ash swept up with the dirt and the wind. She's gone, Dean."

Dean's face softened. "That never stopped Dad and us from visiting Mom. It's her memory, the symbolism, that truly counts."

Sam dragged his forearm across his face to wipe away the tears. "Fine, Dean. I'll say goodbye to her."

Dean gave him a small, comforting smile from the driver's seat.

When they got to the cemetery, Sam laid a bouquet of roses down on top of where she would be if there was anything left and cried. "Jess," he sobbed, "I'll miss you." 

* * *

 

"Sam, wait up!" called a high pitched voice from behind him. He turned around to see Riley Thompson from his chemistry class.

She was a very pretty girl, with long raven black hair braided down her back. She wore a coffee colored shirt on top of a pair of tight, dark jeans to bring out her bright hazel eyes. She  wore the type of sleek black combat boots that Dean had told him that he should get. They had fairly good padding and lasted a pretty long time.

Sam turned around and waited for the girl to catch up to where he was standing in the school field. "Um, hey Riley," he said awkwardly when she got close enough to talk to him.

"Hey Sam!" she replied with a cute grin on her face. "Are you by any chance interested in going to the football game with me tonight? My mom doesn't let me walk to the games by myself. It's ridiculous! I'm fifteen! I can walk to school by myself!"

Sam smiled crookedly. "Um, yeah sure, I'll go out with you. To the game I mean." Sam blushed anxiously.

She giggled. "Can you walk to my house around  sixish ? Here's my address." Riley handed him a small slip of white paper marked with both her address and her phone number.

"I'll be there." He confirmed with a toothy grin.

"Where do you live anyway? I know you're new, but, like this town is pretty small and I don't remember anybody moving out recently." 

Sam slightly  ground  his teeth. He didn't want Riley to know that he was staying alone in a trashy motel room while Dean and Dad took out a nest of vamps a few towns over, but he also didn't want to lie to her more than he had to. More importantly, he didn't want to lose this date if she discovered he was lying.

"I'm staying in the motel on Walnut Avenue," he said with a slight frown on his face.

She cocked an eyebrow. "The  Roachwell  motel? Really? That must suck." The motel was really called the  Redwell , but it was one of the grosser motels that they'd stayed in, so Sam could understand why the townspeople had a name to make fun of it.

"Yeah, my dad and brother are working a job over in Hansen," Sam shrugged, acting like the life he lived was perfectly normal.

"They're working together? What do they do?" she asked as they started walking in the direction of her house.

Sam kicked a pebble in the road. "Just small carpentry and mechanic jobs. It's the family business. Sometimes I go and help them out with whatever the project is. When I'm not in school of course."

"So, you're going to be a carpenter when you grow up? Excuse me, but I don't think that sound like you're aiming very high."

"I don't want to do what they do," he sighed. "I want to go to college. Become a lawyer."

Riley smiled slightly. "I think you'd make a good lawyer, Sam Winchester. you should definitely go for it. I think your Dad would be proud if you went to college and got your dream job."

Sam snorted, "You really don't know my dad. My brother might be proud if I did that but he wouldn't say anything because he does everything Dad says."

She shrugged. "Then he's not worth the effort. This is your life, Sam. You get to live it, not your dad."

Sam smiled softly. "You're right. Pick you up for the game at six?"

Riley bit her lip. "Yes, Mr. Lawyer, sir."

Sam never spoke to Riley again. He returned to the motel to see Dean and John all packed and ready to move on to the next hunt. Sam just sighed and clambered into the backseat of the Impala.

* * *

 

_ This time, the added voice was a luxury, a new source for hope.  Castiel  knew everything that there was to know. He could break him out of here. Wherever here happened to be. _

_ " Cas ! You're here! Did you get my prayers? You need to heal Sam!" Dean's voice shouted. _

_ "Dean, I can't. I'm human," sadly responded  Castiel's  gravelly voice. _


	2. Chapter 2

When  Castiel  first opened his eyes, all he knew was that he had a dry throat and the strange urge to urinate. Also, he was on the side of some road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest on either side of him.

He was human, alone, and covered in blood and dirt. He was lost, but at least he had a destination. Lebanon, Kansas. That's where the Men of Letters' bunker was. That's where Dean would go after he stopped, or at least tried to stop, Sam from completing the third trial to close  the Gates of Hell. And Dean could help. He'd helped him on a hunt before. Surely Dean could teach  Castiel  how to be a human.

Then he looked up at the sky. At first glance, one might see meteoroids falling from space, but  Castiel  knew better. It was the angels, his brothers and sisters, falling and it was all his fault. He had trusted the wrong person and it had ended in the loss of his grace and all of the angels coming hurtling down from the sky.

Some of them could die on their way down to Earth.  Castiel  had killed hundreds of his brothers and sisters between fighting them off in the apocalypse and murdering each and every one of Raphael's followers. He didn't want to cause more pain among his family.  Castiel  was a murderer. He didn't deserve to be an angel. Now he was a human, but he didn't even think he deserved that.

He longed to go back to the years he spent playing and dancing with Anna as a fledgling in the beginning of time.

 He remembered the dinosaurs and how the mighty lizards roared, flaunting their sheer size and power. 

He remembered the great big wooly mammoths. Anna truly loved those creatures. They rode them sometimes, rubbing their faces into the heavy coat of soft, shaggy fur attached to the creature.

 He remembered the first humans. They weren't creatures of perfection, but  Castiel  was always fascinated in them. Sure they made mistakes, but they learned. They forgave. They  loved. Love was always but a dream. Angels weren't supposed to have emotion, therefore they could not love. Yet, they were supposed to love everything. It was a paradox. Illogical. That was the first time  Castiel  considered that angels weren't perfect creatures. Perfection is an illusion. The important thing was trying to be good and forgiving those who weren't.

He never shared these opinions with the host. They would never forgive him, for they did not believe angels could forgive.  Castiel  was just the angel of Thursdays. He was unimportant. He could disappear and nobody would notice.

Oh, if only they knew. He became so much more and so much less. In these last few years he helped thwart the apocalypse to save humanity, impersonated his Father and murdered many of his brothers and sisters, died a few times, housed the entire race of Leviathans, went insane, got stuck in Purgatory, and became human. Now there was hardly and angel that did not know the name  Castiel .

Suddenly a pair of bright white lights flashed in his eyes. Headlights. He was going to get to Dean. He was going to help in any way he could. He was going to earn forgiveness.

* * *

 

Dean saw the fiery figures falling from the sky. There was no way in hell that anything good was happening on the Heaven front. God, he just hoped that  Cas  was safe, where ever he was.

He assisted Sam into the Impala. He wasn't doing too hot. If he was sick after finishing the second trial, he sure was a hell of a lot sicker after failing to finish the third. 

"Sammy, hang in there," Dean said as he crawled into the driver's seat and started the engine.

"I'm fine, Dean," Sam insisted.

"Dude, you can't even life your head. Be honest with me. I don't want any crap when it comes to your well-being anymore."

Even Sam's  bitchface  was worse after this trial. "Fine, Dean. You want the truth? I think I should've finished the trials. Better to die closing the gates of Hell than helpless in a hospital bed."

"Sammy, you're my brother. I'd rather have you here than nobody and a boring demon-free life."

He turned up the classic rock blasting through his Baby to avoid further conversation.

After a stop for gas and a few more hours of driving, Dean turned down the music to talk to Sam.

"So, we'll head back to the bunker and then we can call-" Dean noticed that Sam was just lying there, not responding in any way to anything he was saying.

"Sam? Sammy? Wake up. You might be concussed or somethin' so you can't be falling asleep just yet." Dean nudged him in the shoulder and he still refused to wake up. 

Dean quickly pulled the Impala over on the two lane highway and began shaking his little brother furiously, "DO YOU HEAR ME?! WAKE THE FUCK UP, SAMMY!"

Sam wouldn't wake up. He couldn't lose Sammy. Not now, at least. After he had just stopped him from getting rid of demons forever to save his life.

Dean needed to get back to the bunker. Maybe  Cas  was there in full angel glory ready to heal Sam up. He could only hope that his efforts to rescue Sam wouldn't be for nothing.

* * *

 

The car pulled over.  Castiel  could make out the form of a minivan in the darkness. Dean disliked minivans, he preferred older, smaller cars. He said minivans were for "soccer moms."

"Hello," chirped a female voice from inside the vehicle. "Do you need a ride? Or some directions?"

Castiel  looked to the part of the car where her face appeared to be, but he couldn't make out any details in the darkness of the night. "Where am I?"

"Just outside Mount Pleasant, Michigan," she informed him, slight concern in her voice. "Where are you headed?"

"Lebanon. It's a tiny town located in Kansas." 

"Well, you've got a ways to go then. Get in the car."

He climbed into the passenger seat of the minivan. He could see the woman clearly now. She was younger than Sam and Dean, but older than Kevin. Possibly about twenty-five years of age.  She had shoulder length auburn hair pulled back in a black headband and stormy gray  eyes. In the back of the minivan, there was a small baby sleeping in some sort of carrier. A mother, just like Dean had said.

"Thank you," he said politely as he buckled the seatbelt.

"I'm headed down to Saint Louis. If you stay with me until then, that'll take you about halfway. You'll have to find somebody else to take you the rest of the way. Maybe you can catch a bus to Kansas? They probably have some bus routes running from St. Louis into Kansas City, Lawrence, and Wichita"

He looked into her stormy gray eyes. "I really appreciate your kindness. I wish there were more people on this Earth that are as generous as you have been to me. Most people would not pick up a wayward stranger without ill intentions in mind."

She looked slightly confused. It was probably the way in which he spoke. Dean had always told him that some of the terminology that he tended to use was more complicated that that of most modern humans.

"You looked lost. I couldn't just leave you there, especially not with bits of space junk falling out of the sky," she finally spoke, referencing the falling of the angels.

"My name's Tori," she offered his a soft smile.

"I'm  Castiel ," he replied, hope shimmering in his blue eyes.

He settled back into his seat next to the extremely kind woman. It was going to be a long journey to the bunker, a few days at best, but he was going to get there. He was going to make  it to Dean and Sam and, together, the three of them were going to fix this, all of this. They were going to find a way to return the angels back to their home, in Heaven, and they were going to find a way to return his grace to him.

* * *

 

Dean kicked the door to the bunker open, Sam's oversized body thrown over his shoulders. No sign of  Cas  so far, but that didn't mean that the angel wasn't around the bunker somewhere. It was a pretty big place.

As Dean laid Sammy out onto his bed, Kevin came walking into the room with his mouth full and a half eaten turkey sandwich in hand. He frowned at Sam's unconscious figure, obviously unsurprised at seeing yet another Winchester injury. This was different though, Sam just wouldn't wake up.

Dean looked the teenager in the eye, trying to keep up his tough guy cover even though Sam was in some sort of coma. "You seen  Cas ?" he asked.

Kevin shrugged. "I haven't seen him around. Maybe if he would've listened when I said that whatever  Metatron  had him do weren't trials to close up Heaven, he'd be here. But, you know, don't listen to the little Asian prophet who is reading the word of God, he probably has no idea what he's talking about."

Dean shot him a dirty look and Kevin raised up his arms in surrender. "Look, Dean, I haven't seen  Cas . You saw what it was like out there. The angels fell. Chances are, he's dead or worse. I did, however, get a phone call from another person who is heading down here."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"She said her name was Charlie Bradbury, Queen of Moons. Dude, next time you go  LARPing , you'd better invite me," Kevin said enthusiastically.

The hunter furrowed his thick eyebrows. "Why is Charlie coming to the bunker? I mean, I'm always happy to see the little sister I never wanted, but she's usually got a reason to come and visit."

Kevin gave him an exasperated look. "I don't know. Maybe she saw all of the angels falling out of the sky and thought:  'Huh, I wonder what Sam and Dean fucked up this time.'"

"Hey, that wasn't us, that was  Cas ," Dean reasoned.

"Dude, it usually is you. She had the right to assume. I mean, exactly how many times how you broken the world?" Kevin said with a smirk on his face.

Dean gave him a bitch face that could rival Sam's own and Kevin backed out of the room, hands up in surrender.

"Teenagers," Dean mumbled under his breath. Man, he was getting old. That was not a fun thing to think about. He was thirty-four and he still was alone. At this rate, he'd be a grumpy old man in no time. The kind that the girls he went after now felt bad for because he was old and lonely. That is, if he even lived that long.

Would he even want to live that long alone, without Sam or  Cas  around?  Cas .  He had to call the angel. He had to know that he was alright.

Dean looked up to the ceiling and prayed out loud, " Cas , you need to come back to the bunker, man. It's Sammy. He just won't wake up!" 

Dean swallowed, "I know we got into a disagreement last time we were together, but I still need you, man."

God, he hoped Kevin wasn't listening. This sounded so cheesy. "Not just to help Sammy. I need you here. With me. I need to know that you're safe."

Dean slid down the cold, white wall, face resting in his hands. If  Cas  was gone and he couldn't save Sam, what was the point. Dean had lost everything so many times. He just needed  Cas  here. He needed the angel to save Sammy and, more importantly, he needed him safe. 

There were two people alive on this Earth, hopefully, that grounded him, kept him safe. One was Sammy. His baby brother that has been fighting at his side, guarding his back, since he was four. The other was  Castiel . Angel of the Lord. He saved Dean from Hell and never really left. Dean had left a mark of him, and he had left a mark on Dean. 

He'd never tell anybody the truth, but Dean may be a tiny bit in love with that blue eyed angel.

* * *

 

When they arrived in Saint Louis,  Castiel  thanked Tori and headed inside the small bus station she had dropped him off at. She had even gone so far as to give him the money he required to purchase a ticket and some food if he needed it. Her motherly compassion toward a  complete stranger had warmed his heart. He smiled to himself knowing that she must have a truly beautiful spot in Heaven waiting for her as a reward for her immense capacity for kindness.

Castiel  looked around the station in search of a way to acquire his tickets. he had ridden on a bus before, when he was running from Naomi, just a few months ago. For some reason, he was a lot more nervous this time. As an angel, if he made a mistake, got on the wrong bus, he could just teleport away but now, he had limited money, therefore, if he didn't take the correct bus, he could end up in the situation he began in. Lost with no money.

He walked up to the ticket counter, which was being worked by a tired looking Asian girl. She looked to be about college age, probably taking the night shift to raise necessary funds for her schooling. Her nametag read 'Lindsey'.

"Hello, sir. What can I do for you today," Lindsey said, uninterested in what she was doing.

"I need tickets for a bus," he replied.

She smirked to herself, "Well, I guess you're in the right place then. Where do you need to go?"

"Kansas," he replied quickly.

She rolled her big brown eyes at him. "Where in Kansas? We have routes that stop at Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita."

Castiel  thought for a moment, considering the relative location of each of the three cities to the location of the bunker in Lebanon. "Topeka," he decided. He could hitch another ride from there.

"That's bus 34. That'll be $26.87," she said in a flat tone.

He handed her his two twenty dollar bills that Tori had given him. She shoved his ticket and the remaining $13.13 at him.

"Have a nice day, or night that is. You bus leaves in an hour." She rudely flashed  Castiel  a fake smile as he picked up his things and left the counter.

This Lindsey woman seemed mean, but  Castiel  tried not to judge her. It was late and she probably had a busy life.  Castiel  was well aware that sleep deprivation was a factor that could play into a person's overall mood. It reminded him of the time he had needed to talk to Dean on the  phone during the beginning of the apocalypse and Dean had informed him that he needed sleep and then rudely hung up on him.  Cas  wasn't man at him for that, so he had no reason to feel any sort of resentment toward the Lindsey girl working the bus counter at the crack of dawn.

* * *

 

When  Castiel  got on the large blue bus, he presented his ticket to the driver, a highly caffeinated African American man. Like Lindsey, he was probably tired and trying to stay awake during the long hours in which he had to drive the bus. The driver confirmed that he was on the correct bus and informed him that they would be arriving in Topeka in about six and a half  hours with all of the stops they had to make along the way.  Castiel  thanked the man and turned to find a seat on the bus.

The gray clothed seats were mostly empty, so he took an empty window seat near the middle of the bus. In whole, there were only eight other people on the bus, including the bus driver. He supposed it was because it was an odd hour of the day and people didn't want to sleep through their stop or anything. 

Near the front, there was a family of three, a father and his two daughters. Both girls were asleep, and the exhausted man looked quite thankful for it. The older of the two girls looked about seven and was drooling all over her shoulder. The younger girl was probably around three and slept with her knees curled to her chest, leaning against her father. The father listened to music quietly and stared out the window, glancing down to his little girls every few minutes.

In one of the seats between the family and  Castiel , sat a teenage girl. She looked lonely and upset. Her red hair was a tangled mess and there was a trail of black mascara running down her cheeks from her eyes. Her clothes were wrinkled and dirty. She must have been crying.  Castiel  wondered if she had run away and if she needed support. He could not provide that support, though. He was just a human. As an angel, he could console her, assure her that Heaven was waiting for her, teleport her wherever she required transport, but now he couldn't.  He wasn't an angel anymore. He was useless.

A few rows behind him, sat an elderly couple. They whispered quietly, as not to wake the girls sleeping in the front of the bus. They wore weary smiles on their face.  Castiel  observed  love in their eyes. It made him happy. It was what his Father intended. Humans were to experience happiness and love. They were enjoying their lives, using their later years to travel, to go on adventures. He sensed wisdom, meaning in their lives. A meaning that the teenage girl seated in front of him could not yet sense, but perhaps, one day, she would experience the happiness that this couple obviously had.

The last person riding on the bus was seated in the very back. It was man, a bit older than  Castiel's  vessel. Though, of course, Jimmy was gone. It was just  Castiel's  body now, angel of no angel. The man was pale with mousy features and he wore a large tan coat. He had a thin layer of brown, patchy stubble that matched his thick, disheveled hair. The man kept twitching and was wide awake, similar to the driver, but exponentially more alert.  Castiel  inferred that the man was on some sort of mind altering substance. Based on his observations, he concluded the drug was  methylbenzoylecgonine . A drug more commonly referred to as cocaine.  Castiel  wondered what prompted the man to take illegal drugs. It was probably loneliness and neglect.  Castiel  felt sorry for the man.

And then, there was  Castiel . Newly human. He wondered how the others perceived him. Did he look like  good guy or a bad guy? He was unexperienced with being human, so surely he stood out as strange to the others. He wanted to know if he was doing it right, being human. He wanted to ask them, see what they thought. He didn't want to show up at the bunker, failing at everything, even humanity.

He tried to wonder what each person thought of him, but he realized it didn't matter. These people were to wrapped up in their own emotions to judge a complete stranger. The driver was exhausted, but focused on his work. The father was caring and nurturing. The  teenager was upset. The couple was joyful and excited and the man sitting in the back was lonely under all the layers of haze from the drugs.

But, what was  Castiel ? He was curious. He was lost. He was determined. He was his own person now, and it didn't matter what anybody else on this bus thought, what any being on this planet or the stars above thought. Who was  Castiel ?  Castiel  was himself.

* * *

 

Dean moped around the bunker, each hour dragging on to feel like days. Sam wouldn't wake up,  Cas  was nowhere to be seen, Kevin was translating, and Charlie wasn't here yet. It was just Dean and endless halls to roam, relics not to touch because, with his luck, he'd  accidentally  turn himself into a frog or something.

He tried to avoid drinking because he didn't want the first thing Sam saw if he woke up to be his drunken brother. He also didn't want to flip out on somebody, namely Kevin with his recently high levels of sass, just because he had no self control with his anger when he had a little to much to drink and his life currently sucked balls. 

He knew that keeping Sam in his room was just prolonging the inevitable. If  Castiel  didn't show up in full winged glory soon, Dean was going to have to take Sam to one of his least favorite places on Earth, a hospital. Sam was going to have to get tube fed and stuff, and Dean didn't have the resources to do that. He had decided that if Sam wasn't awake by morning, he was going to speed him off to Smith County Memorial, whether he liked it or not. If things got worse, he'd have to leave sooner. Thankfully, it was only a twenty minute drive.

But, still, it was a hospital. Hospitals only brought back bad memories for Dean. They were a hunter's last resort. That's where hunters went when they couldn't fix their injuries themselves, which usually meant a disabling injury or death.

He had almost died in two separate hospitals. Three, if you count the one where he had to sprint on crutches to get away from a bunch of nasty Leviathan. His dad had died in a hospital. Bobby had gone to the hospital when he lost his legs, then a few years later, died in one. To Dean, going to the hospital meant a loss of hope, a feeling that Sam may never wake up.

Dean needed hope. He needed  Cas  to be okay and he needed him to save Sam. He was worried. Dad had always told him to stay strong, to be a man, but, sometimes, it was impossible. Sometimes a man needed to cry a little, not to forget everything and pretend it was okay. It was okay for a man to care every once in a while.

He walked into Sam's room and looked down to his brother's pale form on the bed. He had redressed him into black sweatpants and a t-shirt so that he didn't wake up feeling uncomfortable. Sam's hair was a tangled mess and he sort of needed a shave. Dean wanted him to wake up now. He wanted to tell him everything was okay and make him tomato rice soup.

He remembered caring for Sam when he was sick as a kid. He'd make him soup and sing him his favorite songs rather than lullabies, just like Mom had done for him when he was a little kid. Dad rarely even knew Sam was sick. He wasn't around nearly enough to realize it and, when he was, Dean was the only one who really nurtured his little brother back to health anyway.

It was his job. "Watch over Sam for me." "Take care of Sammy." "Dean, I'm going away on a hunt up north for a month or so, can you make sure everything is okay for your brother?" It never mattered what Dean wanted, only Sammy, and he wouldn't have it any other way. Sam meant the world to Dean. He was a reminder of Mom, a way to prove himself to her after she was gone. Sam was Dean's baby brother, and big brothers always have to keep an eye out for the little ones, or younger, but overgrown ones.

Sam and Dad never knew this, but Dean drove by Stanford all the time to check on his little brother. He took care of any nearby hunts so that Sam wasn't threatened. Dean would drop anything for Sam because he was his big brother, and that was his job.

And, standing there, over Sam's motionless body, he felt useless. What was he supposed to do? Sell his soul again? Sam would just look for a way to weasel out of it again, possibly putting himself in the crossfire.

His only hope was  Cas  or, so help him, human medical technology.

So, to put it lightly, if  Cas  didn't show up, he was fucked.

* * *

 

Castiel  was so close. He had found a nice man in Topeka willing to give him a ride a ways down route 70 and a kind elderly woman had given him a ride up through route 24. He was only few miles away now, and if there's one thing he could do in his new human form, it was walk.

So, he did.

He hiked North toward Lebanon, little worried thoughts prancing through his mind. What if they weren't even there? What if they were dead? What if they didn't want him anymore because, without his angelic powers, he was useless?

Still, he had to have hope that everything would work out in the end.

Hope was a thing that had failed  Castiel  many times in the past. He had hoped to stop the 66 seals that opened Lucifer's cage from breaking. He had hoped to find his Father and gain insight on how to put the apocalypse to a halt. He had hoped to bring down Raphael and maintain the friendships he held dear. He had hoped to avoid violence during the fight against the Leviathans. He had hoped that Dean would leave Purgatory and get to safety instead of seeking him out. He had hoped that he would be able to seal Heaven and solve all of its problems.

Yet, each time, what he had hoped for had failed to come true. He had lost so much, fallen so far. Not that nothing good had come of it. He had redefined family. Learned to love humanity more than God, which was the original intention of his Father.

Castiel  wasn't better. He wasn't worse. He was just different. He had transformed from  Castiel , the obedient angel of Thursday to  Cas , the unofficial Winchester. He had learned a lot, discovered so much, in these past years. Anna had fell for little things, like chocolate cake and sexual intercourse.  Castiel  had fallen for much more than that. He had fallen for family. He had fallen for a desire to save the human race as a whole, a world filled with innocents trapped in a universe that they didn't understand to its entirety. 

Castiel's  self worth as an angel wasn't as low as Dean's was because  Castiel  felt that, although he had caused many problems over the years, he had also done something great. As a human, though, he felt useless. He wouldn't be able to provide the services that the Winchester's normally asked of him and if he were to go on hunts with them, he would require large amounts of training. Still, Dean had said that he needed him, so  Castiel  journeyed on.

Castiel  saw the small, wooden sign that read 'Welcome to Lebanon'. He smiled to himself. He would be at the bunker in a matter of minutes, as the entire town of Lebanon wasn't even a square mile. He had gone almost a thousand miles to reach his destination with little money and no vehicle of his own. He was here. He had made it to Dean. He had made it home.

* * *

 

Dean heard a knock on the bunker door. He raised an eyebrow as he headed toward the door, pistol in hand.  Cas  could just use his angel mojo to get in and there was no way that Charlie had made it here yet.

He opened the door to reveal a extremely tired looking  Castiel . He was dirty and his clothes were wrinkled, but there was a grin on his face and his eyes shone blue with achievement. 

Dean didn't wait a second. He yanked the angel by his  trenchcoat  and pulled him into Sam's room, ignoring his hurried protests.

" Cas ! You're here! Did you get my prayers? You need to heal Sam!" Dean's voice rushed out as he practically screamed. He had been waiting for  Cas  to come and save Sam.

"Dean, I can't. I'm human," responded  Castiel , his gravelly voice teetering on the edge of despair. Sam was a close friend to him too, and he probably felt useless in his inability to wake him up with a tap of his fingers.

Dean pulled his friend out of the room. "It's okay that you're human,  Cas . We can save Sam. It's not your fault."

Castiel  was on the verge of tears. Dean had never seen him cry before. "I'm sorry, Dean. I just feel so useless without my powers. I am just a human now."

A flash of sadness flickered across Dean's normally toughened face. "Don't you ever say that you're useless. Sam and I are humans, and we turned out fine. You have worlds of knowledge on top of that. We need you,  Cas ."

"But, Dean-," the former angel tried continue.

"No," Dean continued. "I need you,  Cas . Not just for hunting and help with medical issues or whatever. You're a part of our family. You're the closet person to me other than Sam and, frankly, I couldn't live without you. You're like a, um, a-."

"A second brother?"  Castiel  suggested.

Dean felt a panging in his heart. He didn't want to be  Castiel's  brother. He wanted to be more than that. He loved the angel, but obviously  Cas  thought that they were like brothers, so it could never happen. They could never truly be a thing. 

"Um, sure. What you said," Dean half-heartedly grumbled in response as he tried to mask the hurt inside of him.

He shouldn't have allowed himself to develop these feelings. A hunter's life was no place for love or relationships. No matter what, life will always find a way to let you down.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Dean was gone. He was long dead. He was suffering an eternity in Hell. Ruby was absolutely right. Sam needed to focus on bigger things, not dwell on the past. He needed to work toward bringing down Lilith. He needed to do this so that he could begin to avenge his brother's death.

Dean would be so furious with him right now, for trusting Ruby so much even though she was a demon, but it didn't matter. She was providing him with a way to kill Lilith, and Dean definitely would've wanted Lilith dead. It would not only weaken the demons as a whole, but it would also invalidate a lot of crossroads deals, saving a bunch people from an eternity in Hell.

Sam figured that he was doing a lot more good than bad. So, he had to use his psychic abilities every once and a while, but they weren't necessarily a bad thing, contrary to what Dean used to think. The only thing that seemed a little off to him was that he was drinking  Ruby's blood. It was demon blood, it seemed like no good could ever come of that. However, it made him so much more powerful and it would enable him to stop Lilith once and for all. It was an absolute necessity.

Plus, it was what Ruby told him he needed to do. Sam knew he could trust Ruby. She may have been a demon, but she was also so much more. She remembered humanity and aspired to assist him in saving it from Lilith and other demons. Her soul was dark and twisted, yet she managed to use her powers for good, to prevent humans from suffering from the same fate as she did. It was beautiful, how she managed to find greatness while surrounded in so much dark.

When Sam told her to get a  meatsuit  that was essentially dead, to avoid stealing an innocent girl's life, she listened in a heartbeat. She really did want to help people. Ruby had taken an empty body and used it so that it may become more useful than before, serve a greater purpose. The girl she chose was gorgeous too, wavy raven black hair and big brown eyes. He was happy that even after the girl had died, her body would still be used to save the world from darkness. Ruby had never done Sam wrong, always doing what he asked and providing him with ways to help defeat Lilith and her followers.

That was another thing. When Sam practiced using his psychic abilities, it was on demons. He and Ruby were taking out more and more demons faster than he and Dean had ever done before. Only the demons were killed, too. The people that they possessed lived most of the time. The only times they died after Sam exorcised them with his powers were when they had died during the period in which the demon possessed them. Of course, there were a  few time he failed and Ruby had to use her knife, but he was getting better and better each time. They were saving innocent lives. Dean would have been happy about that.

 Even if he couldn't save Dean from his inevitable fate of one day becoming a demon, Sam could do as much good as possible while he wandered the Earth alone, without his brother.

There was a sharp knocking sound on the motel door that broke Sam away from his stream of thoughts. Sam heaved himself off of the creaky bed to see who the hell wanted to come into his motel room at eleven at night.

He leaned down to peer through the tiny keyhole and saw the short form of Ruby, clad in dark jeans and a black leather jacket. Sam immediately opened the door with a smile on his face. She always brought him her blood to make him stronger as well as ways to kill demons and, in the long run, stop Lilith.

"Hey Sam," she greeted in her beautiful voice. "There's a demon. One of Lilith's guys. He's a few towns over, trying to lay low and blend in with the crowd. He's pretty low level. He definitely looked like he'd be good practice for you if you're up for it."

Sam grabbed his dark green backpack and swung it over his shoulder, spinning the keys to  the car in his hand as he started toward the open doorway. "Of course I'm up for killing a demon. Let's go  gank  this son of a bitch, maybe see if he knows anything about Lilith." 

She rolled her eyes like she always did when he spoke in the way that Dean used to speak or did something that Dean used to do when he was alive. She didn't like it at all. She wanted him to just let go, and she was right to think that way. Healthy people were abled to let go of people when they died, move on after a few months.

He grinned as he walked out to the Impala, toward his next case, knowing that, if Dean couldn't be here with him anymore, Sam could at least do his best to be similar to Dean. Sam had to be strong and tough for his big brother, even if it was already too late.

* * *

 

Sam was done. Done with his stupid dad and the stupid family business. He wasn't going to be a hunter. He was going to be a lawyer, get married to a pretty girl, and have a dog. He hoped that Dean would see that hunting was no good and follow him. His older brother deserved happiness too.  He should go to college, find a girl, get a job. Of course, he would never even consider it. He was always too loyal to their father.

So, Sam ran. Alone. He had been saving up cash for weeks to make his break for it. He wanted to have just a few days to clear his head, to he rode a couple of busses and headed out west from where they were staying near Indianapolis. He figured that a few days would do no harm. Dad would be gone for at least another week and Dean would probably be to busy hitting up bars and chasing tail to realize he was gone. After all, it was only going to be a few days. He'd probably stop at like Omaha and then turn around.

Sam finally stopped at Flagstaff, Arizona. It was like that once he got his first taste of freedom, he struggled to let go of it. He was so far away from his dad, from hunting, and it was exhilarating. 

It was late, so he found a seemingly abandoned cabin, probably somebody's summer home, to stay in for the night. He intended to rest up for the night and then get back on the road so that he could return before anybody even noticed he was gone.

When he opened the door to the small cabin, he heard a rustling sound from a nearby room. Sam grabbed his pocket knife and flicked it open. He hoped that it was just the wind, that the shack wasn't already inhabited by people or, worse, a ghost.

He slowly  creeped  toward the sound, stepping softly so that his footsteps couldn't be heard. He saw a small shape, crawling on the ground. Sam slowly moved his hand toward the light switch and steadily flipped the switch up. He instantly grinned when he saw what the thing he saw moving around the cabin actually was.

It was a big, fluffy golden retriever. Sam knelt down and petting it by the scruff of its neck. "Hey, puppy, what are you doing here all by yourself.

Sam noticed the lack of a collar. "You got an owner?" he asked the dog as he continued to pet its downy soft fur. "Well, I'll just have to take care of you then." Dad would never let him have a dog, but he wasn't here, so Sam could have whatever he wanted.

He noted that the god was a girl. Sam grinned. "I'm  gonna  have to call you," he mentally went through the list of dog names that he had picked out over the years to look for one that would suit her, "Bones."

He didn't know why he chose Bones. It just stuck. She seemed to like it and Sam was able to use it often. He fed her, he taught her tricks, and he played for her for hours on end.

Soon enough, hours turned into a few days, and those days turned into two weeks. Surely Dad had noticed he was missing by now, but he didn't care. Sam was truly happy. He had  Bones, a dog of his own. He had enough money saved for a few weeks more of food for him and Bones. Life was perfect.

Then, it all came crashing down faster than ever. Dean came bursting through the door guns blazing, tears in his red eyes. He had a split lip and a big bruise on his jaw. Dad must have come home.

When his big brother saw him sitting there with Bones, he ran over and scooped him up into a big hug, an expression of relief spreading across his face. Sam was confused. Why wasn't he mad? He had run away without so much as a word and Dean was happy?

"Sammy," his brother grumbled while he broke away from the hug, tears falling down his face, "Never do that again. You hear me? I thought you were dead."

Sam kicked a pizza box sitting on the floor. "I'm surprised you noticed," he grumbled.

Dean's face fell at Sam's comment. "Surprised I noticed?! I've been searching for you for two weeks! I was in charge of watching you, of keeping you safe, and then you were gone! Do you know how scared and guilty I felt? How upset? And when Dad came back, he was so furious with me."

Sam looked down at his toes. He hadn't thought of that he was so god damn selfish, so absorbed in himself, that he hadn't stopped to think how his disappearance would effect other people. "Sorry," he replied tears beginning to drip down from his eyes.

Dean looked guilty. "Hey, hey. It's okay." Dean gripped his shoulder. "Let's just get back to Dad, okay?"

Sam looked pointedly to Bones. "But what about Bones?" he asked.

The older boy looked confused for a moment, and then something seemed to click in his head, "I'm sorry, Sam. You're going to have to leave your dog behind. We can drop it off somewhere where somebody will find it and take care of it if you want."

"But, she's my dog! Why can't I take care of her?" The words came bursting out of Sam as he remembered the reason he left in the first place. He wanted to be happy and live a normal life. He wanted a god damn dog.

"Sam," Dean started, but was cut off.

"No! I promise that I'll take care of her. You'll barely even notice her and it's not like Dad's ever actually around. Please, just let me keep her."

A soft expression fell upon his older brother's face. "Sorry, Sam. Most of the motels we go to don't allow pets and we can't really afford to take care of an animal. Hell, sometimes Dad doesn't even leave us with enough money to feed ourselves."

Sam started to cry and Dean pulled him back in for a warming hug. "I just want to live a normal life," he mumbled into his older brother's soft black shirt.

"I know, Sammy, I know."

* * *

 

Sam looked to his older brother from where he was seated in a study oak chair at Rufus' cabin. Dean stared at the wall, sadness rimming his eyes, as he took a sip from his glass of whiskey sitting on the coffee table beside him.

Dean sure drank a lot these days. He claimed that it was too help with the pain from his broken leg, but he was lying through his teeth. Sam had seen Dean behead vampires with a broken wrist and a concussion. There was no way that his broken leg was hurting him so much that he had to drink bottles of whiskey a day.

Sam knew the look on Dean's face. He knew the source of his depression. He knew because that's the same look Sam got on his face right after Jess died. Dean was in love with  Castiel , but now the angel was gone and he just couldn't bear it.

He knew exactly what emotions were running through his older brother's head. Regret for not telling  Cas  that he loved him. Grief tore at his heart, a wound only soothed by whiskey and pie. The worst part, though, was that Sam knew that Dean blamed himself.

After Dean went to Lisa, that's when everything went bad with  Cas . When he turned to Crowley rather than choosing to disrupt Dean in living his normal life. Sam should've told the older hunter that he had to be with  Cas  instead of Lisa, but he knew Dean would laugh nervously and claim that he's "not gay." But, at least they might have both been here today. Now all that he had was a broken shell of a brother and a soggy  trenchcoat . 

The  trenchcoat  was a whole other thing. Dean was so freaking attached to it, like it was going to be the key to resurrecting  Castiel  when, in reality, it was just a dirty coat. It was  actually pretty disgusting. It was soaking wet and covered in things like blood, black goo, mud, and seaweed. Dean had, of course, picked any large pieces of garbage off the thing, but he still refused to wash it. It smelled gross, too, yet Dean even slept with it under his pillow some nights. He considered it the last essence of  Castiel , when, in reality, any evidence that he had ever worn it was washed away in that lake.

The last time that Bobby stopped by, he kept glancing over at Dean, a sad expression on his face. The old man saw it too. He saw that Dean loved  Castiel , and he saw Dean's regret in losing him. Whenever Bobby would bring it up, Dean would shove him off, claiming that he was fine, that it wasn't the first time he had lost a friend.

It was only sort of a lie. Sure, Dean had lost many friends in the past, especially hunters, but  Castiel  was certainly not just a friend. He was so much more than that. Dean wasn't this upset when Ellen and Jo died, and, hell, they were more like family. Sam didn't even know if the impact of Dad's death had hit him as hard as  Cas ' death is.

Sam had even seen Dean cry. Dean always tried not to cry. He always tried to look tough for Sam. 

Sam had concluded that there were at least two reasons that he had rarely ever seen Dean cry. One was that it was similar to the whole thing with parents trying not to cry in front of their kids because they don't want to negatively impact their kids. The other reason was much sadder. That John had beat it out of him. That he had made him grow up too fast with physical force. Sam may have been naïve when he was younger, but now, as he looked back  upon the past, he realized that many of the bruises he saw over the years weren't from fights of hunts, but actually from their father. It had fueled Sam's hatred toward his dad even further.

Still, a few nights ago, when Sam had gotten up to use the bathroom, he had  creeped  past the couch only to see his older brother curled into a ball sobbing heavily. Sam wanted to sit next to him and pull him in for a hug and tell him everything was okay, like Dean did for him when he was younger, but he knew it would only make the issue worse. Dean would be embarrassed and unable to look him in the eye for a week or so, all because he showed weakness to his little brother.

In the past, Dean had always hid weakness from him. He acted like everything was all right after dad died. Dean had even lied to him about remembering Hell. Dean felt that getting any sort of sympathy from others meant that he messing up their lives. Sam wished that Dean could just understand that he cared about him, that he wanted to help him. God only knows that Dean had helped him so many times.

But Dean was Dean. He concealed all human emotion other than anger. He thought he was worth absolutely nothing when, in reality, he was worth so much. He had saving so many lived, helped any person he saw that needed it. It amazed Sam how real heroes never really realized that they were saving anything, they only ever saw all of their mistakes.

* * *

 

_ " Cas , I love you, buddy, but we got to get Sam to the hospital like, right now. This is important. Have you seen my keys?" Dean's voice was hurried. He was obviously extremely worried about something. _

_ "You love me?"  Cas ' voice responded, shocked. _

_ Sam smiled inside. He hoped that, wherever they were, they could see his grin. Fucking finally. _

* * *

 

Sammy wore a proud grin on his face as he marched behind his daddy and his big brother. Today was the day. It was the day that he finally got to go fishing like a big kid.

Usually, when Dean and Daddy went fishing, he had to stay at the church with Pastor Jim. Don't  get him wrong, Sammy liked going to Pastor Jim's.  He wasn't old or smelly and sometimes they'd play board games or he'd teach him how to play cards, which Sammy almost always forgot between their visits.

 No, this wasn't about not wanting to stay with Pastor Jim. This was about being a big kid and being allowed to do big kid things. Sammy was seven now, which meant he was practically an adult, so he got to go fishing.

Sammy even got to help carry stuff. Daddy was carrying the heaviest stuff because he was a big strong adult. Dean, who was eleven, was like an adult too, so he carried the icky stuff, like the bucket of mud and worms. Daddy had called it bait, but he wasn't a fool, it was really just a bucket of gross stuff. That left some of the lighter stuff for Sammy. 

He carried a small backpack with sandwiches and a water bottle on his back and he excitedly gripped his little fishing pole in his hands. Daddy had said it was a "little pole for a little guy, but it would get the job done." 

Daddy had also gotten him a green fisher hat from the Goodwill. It fit him just about perfectly over his big head of floppy hair. Daddy had told him that he'd need to get it cut soon because it was starting to flop into his eyes, but Sammy didn't  want to. He didn't like having scissors near his face and he was always scared that Daddy was  gonna accidentally  cut his ear or something.

"C'mon, Sammy, you  gotta  keep up. We're almost there," Dean encouraged from where he was walking in front of Daddy.

Daddy smiled. "Calm down,  Deano . We'll get there eventually. We have all day to catch fish."

"But I don't want to miss a moment of it!" Dean exclaimed.

"Dean, you and Daddy go fishing all the time!" Sam argued.

"No we don't. We only go sometimes when we see Pastor Jim." Dean stuck out his tongue at him. 

"Dean," Daddy warned. "Be nice to your little brother. We have plenty of time to fish. The boat rental shop isn't even open yet."

Dean quieted down. "Okay, sir," he said softly. "I'm sorry Sammy. I was just teasing." 

Sam smiled and ran ahead to hold his big brother's hand. "It's okay Dean."

When Sam took his hand, Dean looked to Daddy scared, like he was doing something wrong, but when he saw that Daddy was just smiling and laughing to himself, he gripped Sam's hand harder and grinned as he kept hiking, a bit slower so he could keep up.

When they got on the boat, Daddy put Dean and Sammy in charge of the paddles. It was hard because they had to work together to turn and even to go straight, but Dean was patient and made sure Sammy could keep up.

"Okay, boys, here's a good spot," Daddy said when they were in a part of the lake where there was no other boats and the shore was sort of far away. 

"Weigh anchor!" Dean shouted as Daddy lowered a little metal hook thing to the ground.

Sam looked at Dean as sternly as he could. " Shh , Dean. You're  gonna  scare away all the fish."

"What do you know about fishing, Sammy? It's your first time," Dean responded, scrunching up his face.

"He's right Dean," John interrupted. "I know you're excited that your brother finally gets to go fishing with us, but you have to be more quiet."

Dean nodded. "Sorry. I guess I'm just happy to have Sammy along."

Sam was surprised. Dean was happy he got to go fishing too? He thought that Dean would be mad because it was his and Daddy's thing. Maybe Dean was just proud of him for growing into a big kid just like him.

Fishing was long and boring. Sam thought it would be a lot more fun. Still, it was nice spending time with his family. Especially Daddy because he was gone a lot on "a job." Daddy told him he was something called a  traveling  salesman and that's why they didn't have a lot of money and moved around motels a ton. Dean never answered questions about Daddy's job because apparently he didn't know a lot about it.

But, Daddy's job didn't matter when they were on the lake. They talked about different things, like school and sports. They even talked about Mommy, which Daddy didn't usually like to do because it made him sad. 

But, Daddy told them the story of the first time they went fishing together. Apparently she liked fishing just as much as Daddy and she was even better than him. He said she had caught a giant fish. It was two whole feet long. He told her that they should either cook it up and eat it or mount it on the wall at her house, but Mommy was too nice and wanted to throw it back in the water. Apparently, Daddy was mad because he thought they'd never get a catch like that again, so he stood up in frustration. He tipped over the point and they fell into the water. He thought Mommy was  gonna  be mad but she just laughed and said "It's going to be harder to catch another fish that big if we're in its home territory."

The story made Daddy smile and brought tears to his eyes. Dean told him later that night when they were playing Go Fish together at Pastor Jim's house that, although Daddy was  really upset that their Mommy was gone forever, and sometimes made bad decisions because he was sad, he was also happy that he still had his two little boys to go fishing with and tell all of his stories to.

* * *

 

"Sam, get up. I made breakfast," Sam heard the Amelia's sweet voice above him as she gently set a hand on his shoulder.

Sam just replied with and angry groan. He didn't care what time it was. It was still too early.

"I made your favorite," she sung as he felt the weight of her hit the bed next to him. "Corn beef hash and eggs." At that, Sam cracked an eye open. How had this girl managed to see through all his healthy eating and pick out his favorite breakfast so quick. They had only been together two months.

"I'll be there in a minute," he promised as he sat up on the bed and began scanning the room for a shirt.

"I'll make you a plate," she said as she walked out of the room sporting the plaid shirt he wore yesterday, winking at him when she reached the doorway. She was so beautiful. Sam often wondered how he was able to find such a perfect girl so fast. Her dark brown curly hair bounced a little with her step. She was definitely the greatest thing that happened to him since Jess.

Amelia kind of reminded him of Jess too. The way she was so kind, but not afraid to make fun of him sometimes. She was strong, smart, and independent. Those were the three main things Sam usually looked for in a women. Hell, that's probably why Ruby was able to get under his skin so easily in the first place. But, usually, the girls he went for were nice, but not afraid to speak their minds. 

Sam loved his life with Amelia. He had achieved most of the things he strived for as a kid and was working toward more. Sam had a steady girlfriend and a job. He had Riot, his big, fluffy Australian Shepherd. He and Amelia had decided that after a year or so, he should start applying to law schools again.

Sam was going to get his dream life and, sometimes, he  kinda  felt selfish about it. He tried to remind himself that Dean, wherever he was, would've wanted him to have his life and be happy. Sam still felt like he should've searched for him, but he had no idea where to start anyway. People don't usually just disappear into thin air. Sam just assumed he was dead and in Heaven. Dean was in a better place, so Sam could have a better life too.

He wrenched himself out of bed and rubbed the crust from his eyes. He sluggishly walked over to the dresser and pulled out one of his white t-shirts. He pulled it over his head and went into the kitchen.

It smelled delightful. Sam had forgotten how great food that wasn't from a truck stop diner smelled like. He sat across from Amelia at the table and smiled. He was so grateful to have her, to be the guy that got to look into those beautiful chocolate brown eyes.

He cut up his eggs and swirled them into his corn beef hash and took a bite. Sam moaned something near sexual. Amelia's cooking was even better than Jess' had been, and that said a lot.

She giggled from across the table. "I take it that you're enjoyed your breakfast. You two need a moment?"

"Shut up," he replied through a mouthful of delicious food. Although talking with your mouthful was always more of a Dean thing to do, Sam picked up the habit on rare occasions.

"I am quite glad that you enjoy my cooking, even if it does make your manners go to shit," she joked.

"So, what are we doing today?" Sam asked between bites.

"Well," Amelia replied, "I have to go into work tonight and I think old Mrs. Thomas was going to pay you to clean out her gutters for her.

Sam groaned. "Ugh. I forgot that was today." Sam loved animals, but he wasn't really much of a fan of hearing the elderly women go on and on about her cats for hours on end while he was trying to work on fixing up her house.

"She's nice!" Amelia protested.

"She's insane," Sam deadpanned in response. "She has more cats than she has living acquaintances."

"True," Amelia agreed with a little laugh, "but she's got a lot of money and you're going to need all these little jobs if you want to try to go back to law school next year."

As always, she was absolutely right. Sam silently rolled his eyes as he picked up both of their plates to stick them in the dishwasher.

"Oh, can you run that when you're done?" Amelia called over her shoulder.

"Sure." It was time for Sam to complete a very important task. Finding the dish soap. It was in one of the lower cabinets near the ground, he just had no idea which one. That was the challenge, trying to get down low enough to find which one was the right bottle. He supposed it was better to get down low and look around than to  accidentally  wash the dishes in rat poison.

He found the box on the second try and ran the dishwasher. 

"That's a new record." Amelia called from across the room.

Sam chuckled in response. "You just did that so you could get a good look at my ass."

Amelia shrugged. "A girl's got to do what's she's got to do to get what she wants."

Sam smiled and then it struck him. He was completely happy and he didn't even know where Dean was. And the worse part of that was, he didn't even really care.

* * *

 

_ "Sam," he heard  Castiel's  voice speak from above, "You need to wake up. You are like a brother to me too, but Dean, he's a mess. I think this is the first time I've seen him cry in public." _

_ Castiel  paused for a split second. "Sam, you are family. I regret that I don't have the power to heal you. This is all my fault." _

_ Well, he was a true Winchester now. Blaming himself for something he couldn't control, no matter who was at fault. _

* * *

 

Sam walked into the third jewelry shop today. He had been searching for rings for a while now, but he was having trouble finding one that just screamed Jess. He needed something simple, yet beautiful. Most of the rings he came across had intricate designs and were filled with shiny gems or they were just plain bands of gold or silver with maybe one large gem on them. He needed something different, something special, he just couldn't quite figure it out.

They had talked about getting married for a while, even though they were still young. It was mostly because Sam was a sap that dreamed of getting married and having kids and a dog, but Jess knew that they would be together for the rest of their lives too. It was hard to explain, but there just was that spark, even from the moment they met. Dean had always told him that there was no such thing as love at first sight, that true love was a myth, but that was just because he hadn't experienced it yet. Sam and Jess undoubtedly belonged together.

They already had a few things planned for their dream wedding. A small ceremony on the beach, inviting only their families and closest friends. They had a good idea about what they wanted their rings to look like too. Two simple silver bands. Sam's engraved with "What would I  do without you?" Jess' engraved with "Crash and burn". It was their catchphrase, one of the little things that made their relationship unique.

Their relationship was fantastic. In fact, it was so great, that Sam often forgot about his old life and was able to put that behind him. He always wanted to be a normal person and he finally was. He was going to be a lawyer and marry Jessica, who was going to be a kindergarten teacher. No more hunting ever again.

 Dad had lost the war. Sam was collecting his reward, peace and happiness. John Winchester had tried to drag him down into his pool of depression but he had escaped into a better world full of love and learning. He wished that Dean had left the life too, but his brother was still listening to their father, carrying out his every command, and that, unfortunately, brought him down.

Sam often felt sorry for Dean. His big brother carried so much that he shouldn't. He had practically raised Sam in their dad's absence, just the be left in the end. Dean didn't believe in love, and didn't even try to go looking for it. The only things he cared about were sex, booze, and hunting. Like father, like son.

Except, Dean was just pretending. He was pretending to be tough like Dad to earn his respect. Dean felt a lot inside and, although he'd never really admit it to anybody, he was actually a really caring person. 

Sam was going to call them and invite them to the wedding. His only worries were having to deal with his Dad's shit or getting blown off for some wendigo in Texas. However, at this point, Sam expected his family to disappoint him.

Jess kept pushing him to call them, but he always refused. He didn't want to talk to them and Dad had made it clear that he didn't want to speak to Sam ever again.

She had, however, convinced him to call them when they had a date set for the wedding. Maybe that's why he kept putting off ring shopping and why he never could find the right one. Maybe he was just scared.

He had to get past this, he thought to himself as he browsed the jewelry store. He wasn't afraid anymore. He loved Jess and, God damn it, he was going to marry her!

Then, he saw it. The perfect ring.

It was golden with a green gem on the top, most likely emerald. Along the sides of the gem there were little engravings of small leaves. It was beautiful and, more importantly, it would suit Jessica perfectly.

He bought the ring and tucked it in his jacket pocket. He planned to propose in a week or so, in one of the school libraries. The place that they met. The ring was a little more expensive than he had originally planned, but every penny would be worth it. Anything and everything was worth it if meant that Ms. Jessica Moore was to one day become Mrs. Jessica Winchester.

When he got to their apartment, he tucked the small box under the floorboard under the bed that he had unscrewed for this exact reason and quickly  screwed it back in before Jess got home from her last class.

He was happy and excited. In fact, he as in such a good mood that he even let Jess drag him to a Halloween party, despite his hatred of the holiday.

He was so happy that he even managed to enjoy the party, no matter how out of place he felt wearing normal clothes to a costume party.

He went to bed that night with a smile on his face and his future fiancé at his side. He was going to get engaged and interview for law school next week. He was overjoyed. That is, until he heard a rustling sound coming from the other room in their apartment.

* * *

 

Sam sat, feeling extremely weak, almost alone. The only other person in the church was Crowley, a smug grin plastered across his face. Sam was going to seal the gates of Hell. It was the last trial. He was going to succeed and make it up to the world for all the disaster he had caused in the years past.

He felt like he was dying. With every hour that he gave Crowley blood, he became more and more weak. The funny thing was, he didn't really care. Even if he did die, it was worth it if he got to lock the gates of Hell. He would save thousands upon thousands of people around the world. Sam would sacrifice himself for that any day.

He hoped Dean and  Cas  were doing okay in closing up Heaven. Then the angels couldn't meddle with things on Earth anymore and balance would be restored to the universe.  His only regret was that, if Heaven was sealed,  Castiel  would most likely be stuck up there with the rest of the angels.

If Sam was dead and  Cas  was gone, Dean would be completely alone. Dean acted tough, but Sam knew that a lot of it was just talk. Dean cared about people. He was dependent on them. If he lost his brother and the man he loved, who knows what he would do?

Sam liked to think that his big brother would go back to the bunker. That he would meet up with Kevin and Charlie to try to hunt down some of the remaining threats that would still be present on Earth, like monsters and spirits. Then, decades later, when he died, the three of them could meet up in Heaven and hunt down all the people that died because of them. By now, Ash had probably tracked down half the people they knew up there. It would be a happy ending to a dreadfully sad story.

Unfortunately, Sam knew Dean better than Dean himself did, and there was no way that was ever going to happen. Dean was like a parent to him in their father's absence and, as he had heard many people say, no parent should ever have to bury their child.

Dean would likely poke at things he shouldn't. He'd cause total disaster if it meant a small chance that he could save his brother. Hell, Dean had sold his soul for him within a few days after his death. Dean Winchester just couldn't let go, even when it was time, and it was extremely unhealthy.

Sam knew that maybe, just maybe, if he died this way, for the greater good, that Dean might be able to let it go. That, if anything, he would be able to avenge his death rather than obsess over trying to undo it. At least, if he died this way, Sam would be happy. After causing so much suffering, he ends it all with something good.

He became more sure that his death would be good if it meant the ending of demons as time wore on. Every profanity that Crowley screamed at him gave him a sense of encouragement. This is what he was going to stop. Demons. Crowley could swear all he wanted, but he was going to become human and the rest of the demons were going to Hell.

Sam Winchester's life was like a full circle. It had practically started with demons, and that was exactly how it was going to end. It felt fantastic knowing that he was going to end them after all that they had done to him and his family. They had killed at least three out of four of his grandparents.  Azazel  had burned both his mother and Jess, the woman he wanted to marry, on the ceiling. They had killed Dad. They killed himself twice and Dean once. They had made him drink their blood, making him a freak that wasn't much better than the creatures themselves. Ruby, the demon he hated most of all, had lured him into her trap, causing him to cause the apocalypse and so much suffering.

Locking the last of the demons in Hell would avenge every single person that they had taken away from him, every cruel deed that they had made them done. Sam Winchester, the Boy King, was going to be the one to end them all. He laughed at the irony.

Unfortunately, he had laughed out loud because Crowley was now talking to him again. "What's so funny, Moose? I'm stuck here too, you know. You might as well share it with the class," the demon grumbled, his voice sounding sickly.

"Shove it, Crowley," Sam replied in an effort to get him to shut up. He should be grateful. At least Crowley wasn't singing any more.

"I'd love to shove something, but you've got me all tied up like I'm your little whore." Crowley wore a smug smile across his face, happy to annoy the living hell out off Sam.

"Maybe I'm laughing at you," he said, trying to turn this conversation around on Crowley.

"Well, I guess I'll be the one who's laughing when you're dead and I'm still around to make your brother suffer."

Sam glared daggers into the King of Hell's eyes, which had flashing bright red for a mere second. "You won't be alive."

Crowley raised an eyebrow. "Really?" he asked. "Because, the way I see it, I walk out of here alive. Worse comes to worse, I'm human. And you die. Look at how weak you are after only two trials. The third one is going to be it for you, Moose."

"I don't care." It was the honest truth.

"Are you sure? You can still back out." Sam turned away from the demon. "Well, maybe."

His head whipped around. "What do you mean?"

Crowley tried to move his hands until he remembered that they were chained. "Well, Moose, have you seen the shape you're in? It's too late to go back and live. You probably won't have a chance after tonight."

Sam considered it for a moment before responding. "Well, I guess it's better to die succeeding than to die failing."

Sam checked his watch. Time for the final injection.

* * *

 

_ Sam heard a beeping sound and quiet chatter. He reached out for it and, for once, he felt that he might be able to grab it, to pull himself up. _

_ Sam opened his eyes to see a plain white ceiling. He looked to his left, There stood Dean pacing the floor and chattering nonsense to  Cas , who was staring at him, blue eyes widened, as his jaw dropped. _

_ "What is it, man?" Dean asked as he turned around. _

_ Dean ran over to him. "Sammy," he said through a layer of tears, "I knew you were going to make it." _


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

Dean quickly busied himself around the bunker. He seemed to be looking for things and packing for something.  Castiel , however, was busy adjusting. He was looking at the bunker from a new perspective now and he noticed thing, things that he had never noticed before.

Castiel  noticed how many books were actually in the library. There was so much knowledge there, yet he always seemed to pass it by. When he was an angel, he had a wide expanse of knowledge strung across his head from his experiences during those many millennia. As a human, learning would not come so easily. He could forget things. It would become necessary for him to read in order to successfully help the Winchesters.

He also noticed the bathrooms. As an angel he had always passed them by, giving little thought. Angels had no need to urinate, excrete waste, or to wash themselves. If they became dirty, a simple thought could make them clean again. The average human, however, spent a year and a half of their life in the bathroom.  Castiel  was going to need to use the facilities. He was going to need to begin to take showers. He was going to become dependent on these things.

Another thing he noticed was the kitchen, food. He remembered when he had eaten before. It wasn't necessary, but he had enjoyed it. Food back then had no effect on him. Now he was going to require sustenance and he would have to make decisions.  Castiel  was going to have to make sure he ate healthy to avoid gaining excess weight. He was going to have to learn which foods he liked and which foods he didn't as well as learn which foods would make him sick. He supposed that, if Sam woke up, he and Dean would spend time arguing about  Castiel's  diet. Dean would encourage him to eat things he enjoys while Sam would push him toward healthier habits.

Castiel  noticed the quiet. Angels hear prayers in the backs of their mind almost constantly. He also used to be hyperaware of his surroundings, hearing every brush of fabric in  the wind within miles. Now, it was near silent. Kevin was shacked up in his room, avoiding Dean in his worried state. Dean made little noises as he dashed around the bunker.  Castiel , though, he just stood still. Observing.

The thing he noticed most of all, though, was Dean. Every little movement he made.  Castiel  noticed the shape of his legs, which benefited him when he needed to run. He noticed Dean's bright green eyes. Before he had seen the beauty in them, but now he saw something else. He was able to read the hunter's emotions, even in his totally human state.  Castiel  saw a mixture of things in Dean's eyes.

There was fear. Dean was afraid that he was going to lose Sam, his little brother that he had cared for throughout his life. The fear effected his motions and expressions. Dean was running around nervously, going from dead serious to flustered in the span of a few seconds.

Dean's eyes also contained anger, but that was nothing unusual. The hunter had gotten an unfortunate life. Many people had died because of the kind of life he got, and now he was worried about losing his brother. Dean's anger wasn't directed anywhere, it was just there. Maybe he blamed himself. He tended to do that often.

Most of all, Dean's eyes looked tired. He had been forced to deal with so much pain and suffering over the years and he needed a break.  Castiel  wished that he could heal Sam. It would soothe Dean's pain and allow everybody in the bunker to be happier. But,  Castiel  was just a human, so all he had the ability to do was just stand and observe while Dean tried to find a different way to fix it.

Castiel  decided to walk into the room where Sam was lying, to see him, even if he wasn't awake. He stood over the younger hunter's unconscious body and yearned to be able to heal him, even though he knew that it wasn't a possibility.

Sam was so pale and thin. He had been sick when he saw him before and now he just looked dead. He held onto his hope that human medical technology could save him, but he truthfully had no idea what the chances were of Sam breaking free from his comatose state.  Castiel  knew that, in order to receive the food and water he needed to survive, Sam would have to go to a hospital, no matter if Dean liked them or not.

Dean came into the room, stress visible across his face. "Hey,  Cas , have you by any chance seen my keys around here?"

Castiel  shrugged and stared at him. "I apologize that I am unable to  heal Sam, nor am I able to teleport you to a hospital," he said sincerely.

" Cas , I love you, buddy, but we got to get Sam to the hospital like, right now. This is important. Have you seen my keys?" Dean said hurriedly. 

Dean said that he loved him.  Was it true, or was it just a slip of the tongue. Or maybe it was just sarcasm. Dean had made it clear that he was a what people call "a Ladies' Man", he could never love him."

"You love me?"  Castiel  asked, still astounded at Dean's words.

He turned around as he saw something shift in the corner of his eye. The corners of Sam's lips were now turned up in a smile.

 

* * *

 

So,  Cas  was human now. That meant two things for Dean. The first was that he now potentially had a chance with the former angel. The other was that he had no powers, therefore he couldn't heal Sam. The second thing was much more important than the first and he had to get help for Sam as soon as possible.

Dean's biggest hope right now was the hospital. So, as  Cas  stood around staring off into space, he got to work. There were a number of things that he'd need if they were to go to the hospital. Matching fake IDs, health insurance cards, and credit cards for starters. They couldn't get him treated if they didn't appear to have the means to do so.

Dean ran into the library and began looking for the box where they kept all the fake IDs and equipment to make them. He found it in the section labeled "hunters". They had always found it kind of ironic that the Men of Letters had a whole section of books dedicated to people in their profession, but, then again, he supposed that regular libraries had, like firefighter books.

He picked up the big box and moved it over to the closest table, careful not to knock over the little lamp in the middle. The box was sort of heavy, but nothing that he couldn't handle. He looked inside and took out the laminator that was on top of all of their id cards and such. What he saw next made him infinitely more grateful for having Sam around.

Everything was sorted in smaller boxes. That was going to cut the time it would take to get everything together in half. Thank God that Sam was such a neat freak.

Dean pulled out the box labeled "Insurance Cards" as well as the on labeled "IDs: Sam". Then he took a seat. He was going to have to pick out a bunch of matching ones and then look to see if he had any with family relations.

He finally picked out five that he thought Sam would appreciate when he woke up. "Great, Alexander", "King, George", "Price, Jonathan", "Stone, Mason", and "Gardener, Robert".

Next, Dean took on the task of finding a fake ID of his own that would signal that they were brothers. It was much easier, as they were filed alphabetically by last name and he'd just have to look at the names that he had picked out.

There were no matching IDs under "Gardener", "Great", "King", or "Price", but, luckily, he had found a card for "Stone". Looks like he was going to have to be Mr. Ross Stone for the next few days.

While he was at it, he decided to look to see what other boxes of fake ID cards were. He saw the box that had belonged to their Dad as well as Bobby's. There was a "Miscellaneous" box that was filled with IDs for Charlie, Kevin, and even a few for Ellen and Jo from a couple of years ago. Then he found a box, slightly less full than his and Sam's, but more full than the miscellaneous box. It was labeled "IDs:  Cas ".

Dean was surprised. He hadn't remembered making  Castiel  any fake IDs other than the one from that time they had worked the case about Raphael years ago, and  Cas  had kept that ID. No, Sam must have made all of these. Where the hell had he even got the pictures. They must have belonged to Jimmy or something.

Dean opened the box and started filing through the IDs. There were a lot. Sam was always the one to be prepared for everything and anything. He kept flipping through each name until he got to  one closer to the end. "Stone, Jim". Sam had a set of IDs so that all three of them were brothers? They didn't even look alike.

Dean looked closer at the ID cards. They were all Massachusetts driver's licenses. Out of state was good. The hospital would be less likely to realize that they weren't real. The ages were close enough and all of the information was realistic. Looked like they were good to go.

Dean went to put the boxes away and he froze when he saw a note in Sam's handwriting taped to the inside of the top of  Cas ' box. He peeled it off of the box and began to read it.

 

 

> Dean,

>  
> 
>  
> 
> If you're the one actually going through the ID cards for a change that means that I must be sick, hurt, or worse. I just wanted to let you know that you and  Cas  probably will not easily pass as brothers, so don't even try that. I made the matching ID cards for you two in specific states so that you can say that you're married. Don't be a jerk about it.  Cas  is our friend and, if I'm dying, I  wan't  him to be able to visit me.
> 
> Your favorite little brother,

 

 

> Sam.

Dean opened his mouth in shock. Did Sam know? How could he? Dean had never told anybody about the thing he had for  Cas . Well, nobody except Charlie, but she took one look at him and knew that he sort of also liked guys as much as girls.

Dean pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind and tried to focus on more important things, like saving Sammy's life. He grabbed the IDs and such and shoved them into his pocket. Something was missing. Where were his keys.

Dean rushed around the bunker looking for his god damn keys until  he finally pushed into Sam's room, where he saw  Cas  staring sadly off into space. He'd been looking around the bunker. Maybe he knew where they were.

"Hey,  Cas , have you by any chance seen my keys around here?" He asked, wiping the sweat off of his brow.

Cas  moved his sad gaze toward Dean and spoke solemnly to him. "I apologize that I am unable to  heal Sam, nor am I able to teleport you to a hospital,"

" Cas , I love you, buddy, but we got to get Sam to the hospital like, right now. This is important. Have you seen my keys?" He sad frantically. They needed to go. There was no time to deal with the low self esteem that  Cas  had learned from him. 

"You love me?"  Castiel  asked, eyes widened in shock.

Fuck. Dean had messed up. A simple slip of the tongue and now he had fucked up his friendship with  Cas . Everything was going to be awkward now and he was probably going to leave him as soon as Sam got better, if not even earlier.

Dean looked over to Sam lying on the bed. The fucker was grinning in his sleep.

* * *

 

After they got to the hospital, Dean immediately sprinted into the emergency room, Sam's overgrown body thrown over his shoulders. That's when  Castiel  first realized it. Dean was going crazy. 

He could've taken the extra two minutes to park and either let him help carry Sam in or to ask for help inside. Instead, he put Sam and himself at risk of further injury because he was so worried about time. He was being irrational. It was because he was scared. He had lost so many people in the past and he didn't want to lose his little brother, not again.

Castiel  sighed and jumped into the driver's seat so that he could park the car. He had learned how to drive to some extent years ago, during the apocalypse. He remembered lessons in the car with mostly Dean, but also a few with Sam and Bobby. They thought he was going to become human then. They were right in the end, only a few years off.

When he walked into the hospital, he saw Dean talking to a nurse who looked absolutely terrified of him in  panic. Dean needed to realize that he was scaring people. The poor nurse had done nothing, and now she was being yelled at by a crazy guy who was over a foot taller than her.

Castiel  ran over to Dean and grabbed his arm. He gave Dean a look and then turned to the nurse. "I'm very sorry about him. He's just worried about his little brother's well-being and is taking it out on everybody around him."

He could see Dean glaring at him in his peripheral vision. He didn't really care. Dean was not going to act like an overgrown toddler to people that were just trying to help him.

When they sat in the chairs in the waiting room, Dean gave him the dirty eye for at least five minutes before  Castiel  just gave up and responded.

"What is it?" he said, exasperated.

"I know you're older and stuff but you can stop treating me like a child, okay?" Dean fumed.

"Maybe if you stopped acting like one,"  Castiel  responded, turning away.

"What?" Dean seemed confused. How could he be totally oblivious to how he'd been acting recently?

"You were yelling at that nurse," he snapped in response.

Dean rolled his eyes.  Castiel  hated this, being treated like an idiot. "She wasn't telling me anything about Sam."

"Dean,"  Castiel  responded, grinding his teeth, "We literally just got here. How would she know anything more of Sam's condition than you do."

Dean was silent for a few minutes. Then, he curled up his knees to his chest and spoke again.

"Hey  Cas ?"

"Yes, Dean?" he replied, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"I'm sorry, man. You were right. I guess I'm just really stressed about everything," Dean said sincerely.

"I understand, Dean." he replied softly.

"It's just that," Dean sniffled. "I don't know how I could handle losing Sam again, like I lose everything I care about."

Castiel  saw a tear drip from one of Dean's bright green eyes. He was crying. It all came rushing to him in an instant. Dean wasn't as invincible as he had once thought. He was a human too. He felt the pain and sorrow everybody else did when losing a loved one.

"You won't lose him, Dean,"  Castiel  said, grabbing Dean's hand and rubbing soft circles into it.

He could tell by the lost gaze in Dean's eyes that the hunter didn't believe him for a second. He was losing hope and with that, he was losing all the liveliness that made Dean who he truly was. If Dean were to stop caring entirely, then who would he be?

* * *

 

A few hours later, they were allowed into Sam's room. He was still unconscious, but a small bit of pink had returned to his cheeks.

The nurses had cleaned him up a little. His long hair was smoothened out and he was wearing fresh clothing supplied by the hospital.

A few moments later, a doctor came in. He was short with black hair and big brown eyes hidden behind large glasses.

"Mr. Ross Stone, I would like to speak with you outside about Mason's condition," he said with a small accent.

Dean got up to join the doctor and  Castiel  finally was alone for Sam for at least another moment. He had smiled when Dean and  Castiel  were talking earlier, so he supposed that he might as well try to talk to the younger hunter. If he could hear him,  Castiel  was going to do his best to encourage him, to give him the hope that he needed.

"Sam," he spoke, hoping that, somewhere in there, Sam was listening. "You need to wake up. You are like a brother to me too, but Dean, he's a mess. I think this is the first time I've seen him cry in public." 

Castiel  stopped and glanced out the window on the top of the door at Dean talking to the doctor. The hunter kept shifting his gaze and chewing at his fingertips.  Castiel  felt almost as sad for him as he did for Sam.

"Sam, you are family." It was true. He was like a true brother. More so than the angels, his true siblings. "I regret that I don't have the power to heal you. This is all my fault." 

Castiel  felt powerless and utterly useless. There was Sam lying right in front of him and all he could do was sit there and hope. He had trusted  Metatron  and now he had broken not only the place he had lived in, but also his home. His true home, the Winchesters.

* * *

 

Dean followed the doctor out into the hall. He was afraid. Medical technology had failed him so many time before. He had to be prepared for the worst.

"Mr. Stone," the doctor began, "My name is Dr. Martinez and your brother in there is my patient."

Dean just nodded in response, unable to get any words to move out of his mouth.

"Your brother," the man continued, "Is a very rare case for us. We are a small hospital and it is not often when we get comatose patients, but we will do our very best to heal him. Now, I have a few questions. Is that okay?"

"Sure," Dean swallowed.

The doctor's dark brown eyes met his. "Now, please be honest. How long has your brother been in this condition?"

Dean didn't want to get lectured, but he also didn't want to lie if it meant that Sam could possibly be put in anymore danger than he already was in. 

"A few days,"  he replied honestly.

Dr. Martinez frowned and wrote something on his clipboard. "Well, at least you brought him in by the time you did. He was beginning to become malnourished, which would decrease his chances of recovery and increase his chances of death."

Dean nodded.

"And this occurred in a car accident, correct?"

"Yes," Dean replied quickly. It was the lie that he had fed the nurses when they had first arrived and he was filling out the paperwork.

"You're lying," the doctor deadpanned.

Dean was taken aback. Even if it was true, it was rude to accuse a stranger of that. "No, I'm not lying," he lied.

Dr. Martinez gave him an annoyed expression. "Mr. Stone, if he were in a car  accident, there would be bruises elsewhere. It's okay to tell me the truth. I am Mason's doctor."

Dean was confused. How the hell could this dude know about the trials. Dean wished he had his knife with him. This guy had to be a demon. One of Crowley's cronies.

"Sir, I saw the marks that the needles made. It must be out of his system now, but I can clearly see that this was brought on by a drug overdose."

Dean sighed in relief. "I'm sorry, Doctor, I just didn't want Mason to get in trouble. He's been getting into some bad things lately," he added to the lie that Dr. Martinez had provided for him.

"Right now, trouble with the law is the least of his worries. If you want, I can look into rehabilitation programs for you."

Dean shook his head. "Thank you, but I can do that myself."

The doctor smiled. "We will do our best to heal your brother. You and your partner just need to hang in there. I have hope for Mason. He has responded to certain stimuli, signifying that he has some degree of consciousness."

With whatever the hell that meant, the doctor retreated down the hallway.

Dean turned around and walked back into Sam's room where he and  Cas  were waiting.  Cas  was sitting in one of the chairs silently, just sadly staring at Sam.

Dean pulled the other chair closer to him and sat down. 

"Hey  Cas , you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess,"  Cas  replied, with the same sad expression hanging on his face.

Dean reached over and grabbed the other man's hand. "It's all going to be okay. We've got each other and Sam's going to make it."

"Sure, Dean," he said solemnly.

" Cas ," Dean said, tilting the former angels head so he was looking at him. "I don't need your angel powers, buddy. I need you. The caring person who is willing to sacrifice all the power in the world if it means he gets to save a few people.  Cas  you're awesome. You're-" Dean hesitated for a moment, "  Castiel , you are amazing."

Then, the most amazing thing happened. First, they were just staring into one another's eyes, but then  Cas  leaned forward and, suddenly, before they even knew it, they were kissing.

It was wonderful. He had waited years upon years for this. It wasn't like a random hookup in the bar. It was so much better. There was that spark, the kind of spark that teenage girls (or Sam) dream about. It was like their souls were pouring into each other.

At that moment Dean, a man who never believed in true love, or love at all in that manner, realized something. He realized that he was in love, that he had been for a long, long time, and he realized that, despite the many horrible things he had done over the years, somebody loved him. Truly loved him.

It amazed him how  Castiel , somebody who had seen all his worst points, who had seen him in Hell, could find a light somewhere in that sea of darkness and fall in love with him.

For once in his life, even if it was just a small moment among the years he lived, Dean Winchester had found true happiness.

* * *

 

Dean had kissed him. Granted,  Castiel  had kissed Dean back, but that didn't have anything to do with how shocked he was.

Sure,  Castiel  had wanted to kiss Dean. As he thought back, he realized that he had been wanting to do that for a long, long time.

Sure, he had kissed people before back when he was an angel. There was that one time that he had kissed Meg. She had tasted dark and sour and he chose not to have any repeat performances. They had become close friends after the kiss which  Castiel  was hoping would be  the opposite with Dean. He wanted to be more than friends with the hunter. Again, as he thought back, the desire to be in a relationship with him had pretty much always been there.

The other person he had kissed was his wife, Daphne, back when he had amnesia and thought that he was a healer named Emmanuel. She had tasted of apricots and strawberries, but it was nowhere near as nice as kissing Dean. In reality, they had done way more than kiss during those few months, though, he wasn't about to tell Dean about all of that. Although, it might be nice pay back for the time Dean kissed his sister right in front of him.

Kissing Dean was undeniably the best thing to ever happen to  Castiel . Sure, Dean didn't taste like fresh fruit like Daphne did. In fact, the hunter actually tasted like stale whiskey and that bad aftertaste that you get a few minutes after you brush your teeth. It wasn't about the taste though. It wasn't even about the technique, though, that was a quite pleasant aspect of their kiss.

It was more about everything that led up to the kiss. All the things that made it special. It was like every moment they had together over the years led to this very point. All of the staring, the sexual innuendo, the sacrifice. Hell, even all of the arguing and fighting they had done over those past years had brought them together so that this one little moment could happen between them.

The kiss helped  Castiel  see things about himself that he was blind to before. He was useful for something after all, even though he was now human. He could make Dean happy and what was the point of even being here if it wasn't to help the people that he cared about the most.

It brought a sea of emotions crashing down upon him. He felt desperation. They had wasted years and years not kissing, and who knew how many years they'd have left to share this with each other. He felt great sadness that it took so many tragedies to finally bring them together and, even when they did finally kiss, it was in a horrible time, but, then again, there's always something going wrong when you're with the Winchesters. But, he also felt overwhelmingly great happiness. Dean needed him, and he certainly needed Dean as well.

Most of all, he felt an emotion that few angels ever truly feel.  Castiel , the former Angel of Thursday, felt love. Love had always been but a fantasy to him. It was a thing of stories. A legend. Sure, humans felt it, but angels were only to love their Father, and, later, only to love his greatest creations, humans. Of course, few angels cared for the humans at all, especially after God left Heaven. Then it was just a competition for leadership, causing more and more angels to fall so that they could get away from it.

Maybe this was why Anna fell. She had always been  Castiel's  mentor as well as his closest sister. Before she fell, she had told him stories of glorious things that humans got to experience, such as sex and the taste of chocolate cake, but he had replied with shutting her out and obeying orders rather than listening to her, which he had always done in the past. He had no idea that, years later, he'd be following in her footsteps. Then again, maybe this was partly because of her. She showed him that free will was really a possibility. She encouraged him to rebel and stand up for his beliefs.

But that was never the real reason he had rebelled against Heaven. Any member of the Heavenly Host could tell you the truth.  Castiel  had fallen for Dean Winchester in plenty more ways than one.

* * *

 

The days had gone by for Dean in a blur of caffeine, kisses, and crying. Sam had only been in the hospital five days, so it was somewhat acceptable to never actually leave. Dean had only left the hospital three times. Once to get clothes and such, another to take  Cas  out on his first real date, and a final time because Charlie showed up and he had to get her settled in to the bunker.

Cas  stayed with him at the hospital pretty much all the time. Sometimes he drove back to the bunker for this and that, but he had made the point that he'd rather be with Dean than in comfort. Charlie and Kevin had popped in a few times to show support. Kevin had nothing new on the prophet front that could help fix Sam, so it looked like they were going to have to put all of their hope into this hospital.

Charlie did something different. She read to Sam. Dean was surprised. He knew that she had read to her mom who was also in a coma, but he didn't think that she'd do the same thing for anybody else, whether they were friends or not. She informed them that sometimes people in comas could hear people around them or feel their touch and that, although her mother was never able to wake up, she firmly believed Sam was strong enough to pull through. Dean hoped with all of his heart that she was right.

Yet, even a blessing from the Queen of Moons wasn't giving Dean much hope as Sam just continued to sleep. Dean was tired. He wanted to give up and, frankly, if he didn't have  Cas  at his side, he would have probably spent most of his time passed out in the bunker's wine cellar. Death by well aged wine was, decidedly, Dean's preferred way to go.

But, if anybody gave him hope, it was definitely  Cas . He'd put aside a lot of his self hate that revolved around losing his grace to help Dean continue on living his life. Lately, though, even  Cas ' pep talks were packing less gusto. It seemed like the former angel was starting to accept Sam's fate and that everything was a lie. After all, when you had to reassure somebody about something a million times, it comes into question whether you actually believe it yourself.

Dean looked to his left at  Cas , who was staring holes into the ground beneath him. At first glance, one might think he was praying, but the hunter knew that  Cas  had given up on his father years ago. Perhaps even more so due to the recent events revolving around his loss of grace and the collapse of Heaven.

Dean stood up and faced him. "That's it," he declared. "I give up."

Cas  stood up so that he was almost level with the hunter. "Dean, don't-" he began, but Dean hushed him.

"No, I'm going to go to the bunker and drink a lot sixty plus year old wine and not even you are going to stop me." 

Cas  seemed dumbfounded that Dean was so up front about giving up. "Dean, I really do think that Sam-"

" Cas ," he replied. "I don't want you lying to me, but, more importantly, I don't want you lying to yourself."

A  nurse walked by, frowning at them and  Castiel  quieted down. "Look, Dean give it a few more days."

Dean replied quietly, but with all the impact of a yell. "I've given it days. I'm just done, man."

He looked at the ex-angel to see beautiful wide blue eyes and a jaw dropped to the floor. "What's is it, man?" 

The hunter spun around and what he saw brought tears to his eyes. Screw all the faking. Sam was finally awake. He could fucking cry if he wanted to.

He sprinted over to the hospital bed and wrapped Sam in a big hug.

"Sammy," he cried. "I knew you were going to make it."

Dean decided to ignore  Cas ' scoff from the back of the room for now at least. Dean had always been loud about hating "chick-flick moments," but he was secretly a huge sucker for a happy ending.

 


End file.
